Love him or loath him, Scott Boras is a whiz of an agent.
Andruw Jones, a Boras client, agreed Wednesday to an $18 million a year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
That’s an astronomical salary for a career .263 hitter, especially one coming off a .222 season with the Atlanta Braves and one who’s lost a step in centerfield (that said, he's still among the major’s best defensive outfielders).
Jones is possibly the most over-rated player in the bigs. His career batting average with runners...

Paul Johnson is a serious candidate to be the next coach at Georgia Tech, Duke and Southern Methodist, at least if we’re to believe unconfirmed reports from anonymous sources (and as a former beat writer who covered a few coaching searches, I caution against that).
But let’s engage in the speculation anyway.
Obviously the Johnson-to-Tech scenario is exciting. Every college football fan in Georgia is familiar with what he did at Georgia Southern.
And he would have the tools to run his double-...

Expect more Bowl Championship Series tinkering soon.
Mike Slive, the Southeastern Conference commissioner and BCS coordinator, hinted that the so-called “plus-one” format should gather steam given the controversy surrounding this year’s title game selections.
As many as 10 teams could make a case for a spot in the championship, which will match Ohio State and Louisiana State on Jan. 7. Only one contender, Hawaii, finished this season unbeaten, and the two one-loss teams, OSU and Kansas, played...

The Heisman Trophy’s stiff-arm pose has never seemed more appropriate than this week.
Much like the race for the Bowl Championship Series title game, nobody has earned the award.
Missouri’s Chase Daniel and West Virginia’s Pat White had chances to win the trophy Saturday night. Neither played well -- White got hurt and missed half the game -- and both their teams lost to fall out of national championship contention.
That leaves Florida’s Tim Tebow or Arkansas’ Darren McFadden as the likely...

The GHSA released its new region alignments Thursday, and as reported by Elmo Weeks earlier this week, the Savannah public schools stayed in Class AAAAA despite not having a school with an enrollment larger than a Class AAAA school.
I took a great interest in their other options. Check out Region 2-AAAA: Brunswick (former 3-5A rival), Glynn Academy (former 3-5A rival), Effingham Co. (former 3-5A rival), South Effingham (located 20 minutes from downtown Savannah), Statesboro (former region rival...

Keith Simmons seemed an odd choice to lead Beach’s boys’ basketball team.
He is 26 years old, after all, with no head coaching experience.
And like most inner-city school programs, Beach requires a coach with a heavy hand. The last three -- James German, Frank Williams and Russell Ellington -- all fit that description, as does the man who does the hiring at Beach, athletic director (and girls’ basketball coach) Ron Booker.
Booker saw the disciplinarian in Simmons, though, and says Simmons’...

The good times are back in Statesboro.
Georgia Southern’s men’s basketball team is of to its best start in 15 years in the wake of the football team’s turnaround.
The Eagles improved to 5-1 with Monday’s victory over Mercer and could be 7-1 by the time they face two-time defending national champion Florida on Dec. 15.
Beating Mercer will boost Georgia Southern’s Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) ranking, which the NCAA Tournament committee consults each March. The Bears defeated a top-25 team,...

Georgia Tech has called a 2 p.m. Monday press conference to announce the ouster of football coach Chan Gailey.
Everyone saw this coming in the wake of a disappointing season and another loss to Georgia. Gailey is as polarizing a figure with the Georgia Tech fan base as there is, and in the short term, this looks like a smart move.
But in the big picture, it's a mistake. Gailey has been successful while righting a program tarnished by the George O'Leary resume flap, the failing out of 10 of O'...

Audibles
by the Armchair QB
If you and five friends venture into water over your head, at least you will all drown together.
Such is the mindset of Savannah’s public high schools. The Georgia High School Association will draw up new regions later this week, and the locals will continue to compete in the state’s highest classification, Class AAAAA.
By choice. Not by force.
None of the city schools boast an enrollment of at least 1,850 students, the dividing line between 5A and 4A. Half of them...

Word out of Flowery Branch is a bruised tailbone will likely sideline Falcons quarterback Byron Leftwich for Thursday’s game against the Colts.
Guess that’s bound to happen when you get your backside kicked for three hours like Leftwich did last Sunday.
Let’s call this what it is: A convenient excuse for head coach Bobby Petrino to right a wrong and put Joey Harrington back as the starter. The guy resuscitated the team, leading the Falcons to back to back wins, only to have the Statue of...